'Sorry' statement should acknowledge cultural loss, says state
leader

By Dewi Cooke

February 1, 2008 — 11.00am

HOW can a few hundred words capture the heartache of a generation? That is the question Lyn Austin, chairwoman of Stolen Generations Victoria, has been considering.

She and other state and territory indigenous leaders met Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin on January 16 to discuss, among other things, this month's apology to the indigenous men and women who were forcibly removed from their families as children last century.

It is expected that the formal "sorry" will be the first step in addressing the grief and loss experienced by them. But the precise wording and structure of the apology is still a work in progress, with stolen generations delegates expected to funnel their thoughts to the Government in coming weeks.

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For Ms Austin, the apology will speak to the 10-year-old girl who was taken away from her mother one day in the Wimmera.

"I thought I was being taken just for a few days," she said, "I can recall seeing my mother standing on the side of the road with her head in her hands, crying, and me in the black FJ Holden wondering why she was so upset.

"A few hundred words can't fix this all but it's an important start and it's a beginning."

She said it was important that the statement encapsulated the "cultural loss" children experienced and the confusion, abuse and dislocation they endured after removal.

"I see myself as that little girl, crying myself to sleep at night, crying and wishing I could go home to my family," she said. "Everything's gone, the loss of your culture, the loss of your family, all these things have a big impact."

Ms Austin urged the Rudd Government to adopt the recommendations made in the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report, which advised that any formal government apology should "acknowledge the responsibility of their predecessors for the laws, policies and practices of forcible removal". She also hoped that state representatives would be consulted about the wording before it was made, a recommendation also made in the Bringing Them Home Report.

Ten representatives from each state will be flown to Canberra for the apology on February 13, but Ms Austin said, with more than 80 members and more than 500 supporters in Victoria alone, more wanted to attend.

Stolen Generations Victoria has this week been lobbying churches and other institutions involved in housing removed children for funding to fly to the event.

"It's going to be a highly emotional day in Canberra when the apology is made," she said.